The Wedding
Welcome to our website. We're working on getting everything updated with the right information as we get it. For now, enjoy the pictures!
The Engagement
The proposal was a bit of an event, to say the least. I was in Orlando for the summer for an internship, and Maggie came down to visit me over her birthday weekend. That we were going to get engaged was all but certain. When we were going to get engaged - now that was the question. Up until this visit, I had been telling Maggie that I wouldn't propose until I had the opportunity to ask her father's permission in person. Little did she know that I had already done so!
The plan was to propose over a romantic, sunset picnic at Canaveral National Seashore. For those of you who've never been there, it's about as far away from "commercialized beachfront" as you can get down in Florida. Beautiful doesn't come close to describing it. Everything was set until the night before when the first "disaster" struck - the beach closed at 6pm. Sunset wasn't until 8pm. So much for a sunset picnic.
Probably the most entertaining part about that first disaster was that Maggie had no clue why I was so upset that the beach was closing when it did. I was worried she had grown wise to my plans, but that proved to not be the case, thankfully. We loaded up the car and set off to have our afternoon (romantic) picnic. Cue disaster number two - mother nature had other plans. It was about a 90 minute drive from the apartment to the beach, and halfway through that we hit the typical "afternoon rain" anyone who's lived in Florida during the summer is familiar with. (For those that aren't, it rains just about every single day for around 30 minutes, sometime between 2pm and 4pm. It's strange when that doesn't happen) Maggie got a bit upset and suggested turning around, but I assured her that things would be just fine once we got to the beach. As things would have it, the beach was probably the only place it wasn't raining when we got there - yet!
To say the clouds that were behind us looked ominous would be an understatement. There was rolling thunder, the sun was hidden behind clouds, and a very light sprinkle was falling as we marched out onto the beach with our kit. Strike sunset, strike romantic - we were just having a picnic as fast as possible at that point. We ate for a while, finished up, and laid back, at which point the wind started picking up and the thunder started growing louder. In typical "Michael" fashion, I told Maggie to stand up real quick before a dash back to the car became necessary, I got down on one knee, whipped out the ring, and made my proposal.
While both of us knew she was going to say yes, her initial confusion and stammering struck quite a bit of dread in me while I was kneeling there. What did I do wrong? Did she changer her mind? Why hadn't she said yes, yet? A few things were at play here, which we both still laugh about. Firstly, I put the ring on the wrong finger (whoops!). Secondly, it wasn't a diamond engagement ring - it was a sterling silver ring with a screwhead and clock gear where the diamond would normally go, meant to serve as a placeholder until we shopped together for the "actual" ring. Thirdly, I had managed to completely surprise her, Maggie, the person who's never surprised. I'll chalk all of that up to a win.
Well, obviously, she stammered out a yes. We jumped into the ocean for a few minutes, until the storm was really upon us, and headed back to the car to get washed up and leave. Both of us picked up our phones to call our parents (none of which knew because I didn't trust any of them not to spoil the surprise), and saw tornado warnings for our area plastered across the screens. It seemed like we picked a good time to leave. Thankfully, the drive back was very uneventful, short of all the excitement and cheers as we called our friends and family to tell them the good news.
If you look at our engagement pictures, Maggie has both rings on - the placeholder I proposed with and the ring we designed together (that's a whole 'nother story). We ended that night with a fantastic meal at The Ravenous Pig down in Winter Park, FL. I don't think we've had better food anywhere else.
Locations
The wedding ceremony will be held the morning of May 2nd at 10:00am at St. Peter in Chains Cathedral in downtown Cincinnati. There is a parking lot right next to the church that will be reserved for guests at no cost for the duration of the ceremony.
Our reception will be held at the Cincinnati Club in the Harrison Room, roughly two blocks away from the church. Parking is at the Garfield garage, and tickets will be handed out at the reception to allow guests to leave the garage at no charge. If you want to avoid having to move your car between the ceremony and reception and don't mind a short walk, we recommend just parking in the Garfield garage for both events.
Engagement Photos
Accomodations
Given the number of events going on in Cincinnati that coincide with our wedding (Flying Pig Marathon, Derby Day, UC's commencement, and probably a few other things), hotel availability in downtown Cincinnati - at a reasonable rate - is going to be very hard to find. If you haven't booked a room yet, we suggest looking at the following places:
Thatcher Family Guests
If you'd like to be located near Dr. and Mrs. Scott Thatcher's home, the Wingate in West Chester, OH is probably a good bet.
Downing Family Guests
If you'd like to be located near Mr. and Mrs. James Downing's home, the Hilton Garden Inn in Loveland, OH.
In regards to pricing, you can either go through either of the hotel's main websites, or use a popular travel tool (Priceline, Kayak, Travelocity, etc.) to try and get a lower nightly rate. Both hotels are roughly 30 minutes outside of downtown. Traffic shouldn't be a problem Saturday morning, but keep this in mind as you're making your plans.
Registries
You can find registries at the following locations for gifting ideas:
(If these links don't work for some reason, all of the sites have registry search tools to find us)